Reliability analysis of stiffened composite panel

N.Yang & P. K. Das, Universities of Glasgow & Strathclyde, UK

XL. Yao, Harbin Engineering University ,China
ABSTRACT
0B

Present paper investigates the reliability of an orthogonally stiffened composite plate with boundary
conditions of all four edges simply supported subjected to uniform transverse load. Structural analysis of
stiffened plate is performed based on grillage model assumptions. The principle of minimum potential
energy is applied. A program code is developed to use this method and the reliability and probabilistic
analyses are carried out using the computer program CALREL. The developed program of the proposed
method is verified and comparisons are made with finite element method. Finally, sensitivity analysis is
performed to view the influence of each basic variable to the estimated reliability.

NOMENCLATURE
1B

L Plate dimension in x-direction

B Plate dimension in y-direction
t

Plate thickness

Ig

Moment of inertia of the girder including

effective breadth of plate

Is Moment of inertial of the stiffener including

effective breadth of plate
Ng

Number of longitudinal girders

Ns Number of transverse stiffeners

w

Deflection of plate

Vg Elastic strain energy of the girders

Vs Elastic strain energy of the stiffeners
W

Work done by the external load

External load acting on plate

Aij,

Extensional stiffness

E mx Membrane equivalent moduli of laminate in

X-direction
E my Membrane equivalent moduli of laminate in

Y-direction
1.
2B

INTRODUCTION

Composite materials have received increased

attention due to inherently high strength-to-weight
ratio, low thermal expansion, resistance to
corrosion, better durability and excellent damage

tolerance. Stiffened composite panels are widely

used in different types of structures such as
aircraft and marine vehicles to obtain excellent
strength-to-weight ratio. The study of stiffened
composite panels has thus become an important
topic of research [1-3]. Though much work have
been studied on the analyses of stiffened
composite plates, most of them are performed
under deterministic conditions, namely the
material and geometric properties and loading are
assumed to be deterministic values, the effects of
uncertainties in material and geometric properties
of composite panels are not considered. Therefore,
the development of an efficient procedure for
reliability assessment of stiffened composite plate
is still a goal to be striven for.
In the case of the analysis of stiffened composite
plates subjected to lateral load, Smith [4] showed
that the analysis can be performed by smeared or
discrete stiffener approaches such as Orthotropic
Plate Method (OPM), Folded Plate Method (FPM)
and Finite Element Method (FEM). Orthotropic
plate method is to convert the stiffened plate into
an equivalent plate with constant thickness by
smearing out the stiffeners. The smeared approach
is not well suited to the stiffened plates in which
stiffeners are large and widely spaced. For
structures of more general, FPM and FEM are
likely to be the most effective means of getting
accurate results. But FEM and FPM are not
practical for initial design purposes due to the cost
of modelling and computing, the time consumed is
too high to use.

In view of above facts, in this paper, the analysis

of stiffened composite plate is performed based on
modified grillage model that was used by
K.Maneepan [5] for multi-objective optimization
of orthogonally tophat-stiffened composite
laminated plates. In this method, the principle of
minimum potential energy based on grillage
model assumptions with an equivalent elastic
property is applied. A code is developed by using
above method and the reliability analyses are
carried out using the computer program CALREL.
The developed program of the proposed method is
verified and comparisons are made with finite
element methods. Finally, sensitivity analysis is
performed to view the influence of each basic
variable to the estimated reliability.

rectangular field, stiffened orthogonally by a set of

members of number Ng and Ns, where Ng and Ns
denotes the number of girders and stiffeners along
the x and y direction respectively. The plate is
subject to lateral loading of intensity q with all
edges simply supported.
In this method, the deflected shape at any point is
expressed by a double summation of trigonometric
series

w = f mn sin
m =1 n =1

mx
ny
sin
L
B

(1)

2. THEORY

The coefficient fmn in the series for the deflection

may be determined by the condition that the
change in potential energy due to the assumed
deflection is minimum.

2. 1 GRILLAGE MODEL

The potential energy can be represented as

3B

Grillage is the term given to a structure of

intersecting beams which is particularly common
in ship structures typically in hull construction.
This form of flat grillages is particularly used in
the decks, bottoms and bulkhead of ships. Grillage
analysis is developed for steel by Vedeler during
the 40s [6]. In this paper, the analysis of the
stiffened panel made of composite material is
carried out based on grillage model assumptions
with an equivalent elastic property, and the effect
of the plate is considered as an effective flange to
both longitudinal and transverse beams. In this
way, the analysis of stiffened plate is reduced to
that of an unplated grillage, and is a question of
applying minimum potential energy theory to a
structure containing intersecting beams.
The members (girders and stiffeners) of the
grillage are subjected to bending out of plane of
the structure and the following assumptions are
made:
Beam sections remain plane in the deformed
configuration.
Displacements are small and stress level must
be in the elastic range.
2.2 THE MINIMUM POTENTIAL ENERGY
METHOD
Consider a grillage model of length L and width B,
the origin is being taken at a corner of the

V=Vg+Vs-W

(2)

where Vg ,Vs are the elastic strain energies by the

girders and stiffeners and W is the work done by
the external load q.
The strain energy of the ith girder is given by
2

2w
1
V g i = E gi I gi 2 y = yi dx
(3)
2
0 x
The total strain energy of the girders are given as
L

2w
1 g
V g = E gi I gi 2 y = y i dx
(4)
2 i =1
x

0
iB
where y i =
when all girders are arranged
Ng +1
L

at equal distance. E gi and Igi are the membrane

equivalent Youngs moduli and moment of inertia
for the ith girder.
The strain energy of the jth stiffener and the total
strain energy of the stiffeners are similarly given
as
B
2w
1
Vsj = E sj I sj 2
2
y
0

2
x= x

dy

(5)

2w
1 Ns
Vs = E sj I sj 2 x = x j dy
2 j =1
y
0
jL
when all stiffeners
where x j =
Ns +1
arranged at equal distance. E sj and Isj are
membrane equivalent Youngs moduli
moment of inertia for the jth beam.
B

(6)

are
the
and

The work done by external load q is given by

mx
ny

sin
q ( x, y ) dxdy
W = f mn sin
L
B
0 0 m =1 n =1
L B

2
E mx = (A11 A 22 - A 12
)/A 22 t
m
2
E y = (A11 A 22 - A 12 )/A 11 t

(7)

where q(x,y) is the load per unit area of the

rectangular field.
For the minimum potential energy

equivalent Youngs modulus value is needed to

know for each element. Symmetric laminates are
considered here only, which are the majority of
laminate configurations used in practice, in which
the coupling stiffness term Bij are zero, this
implies that there is no membrane-bending
coupling effects occurring. From Datoo [7], the
membrane equivalent Youngs modulus value of
the laminate plate in the x-direction and the ydirection are:

where Aij,are called extensional stiffness. t is the

total thickness of laminate plate.
2.4 PLY-TO-PLY STRESS

V
= 0 , we
f mn

For stiffened plates, the section is made from an

assembly of flat layered laminated composite
element such as crown, web and flange will be
referred to as elements of section, the material
properties vary from element to element,
depending on the laminate configuration in each
element. For each element, the average direct
stress value acting through the thickness of the
element of a particular laminate can be predicted
at any point in the section using eqn (10), then the
corresponding direct force intensity per unit width
N and moment intensity per unit width M of the
laminate section about its own mid-plane can be
obtained. Then the ply-to-ply stress analysis can
be performed by using classical laminated plate
theory [8].

get
V g

Vs W

=0
(8)
f mn f mn f mn
The numerical coefficient fmn can be obtained from
Eqn.(8). Once the coefficient fmn is obtained, the
deflections of the grillage can be evaluated by Eqn.
(1).
+

The bending moment of girder can be found using

standard beam formulae
2w
(9)
M g = D g 2
x

yj

The corresponding stress value at any point of the

section is obtained by

E gi M g Z
Dg

Ng

D g = ( EI ) gi

(10)

i =1

where Dg is the flexural rigidity of the section of

girder, Z is the distance from the neutral plane of
the section to the point of the considered element
in question.
2.3 EQUIVALENT ELASTIC CONSTANTS
In order to perform the analysis of grillage
structure made from composite laminate plate
using Minimum Potential Energy Theory, the

(11)

3. VALIDATION
4B

In the above section, a procedure for the

evaluation of the deformation and stress of
stiffened composite panels has been established.
Here, two examples are presented to verify the
developed program of the proposed method and
comparisons are made with finite element method
using ANSYS package [9], in which the eightnoded laminated shell element SHELLl99 is used
to model the element of stiffened panel.
3.1 EXAMPLE 1
The first example chosen to investigate contains
four equal and evenly spaced longitudinal and
3

transverse composite beams. The structure

measures 3810mm square and is simply supported
at all edges. The uniform pressure is applied on
grillage structure. The longitudinal and transverse
beams are identical with the dimension of 254mm
deep127mm wide with 18.288mm thick flange
and 9.144mm thick web. The geometric properties
and material properties are listed in Table1.
Table2 give the comparison between the results of
grillage method and finite element method for
maximum deflection and maximum stress at
position A shown in Figure1.

3.2 EXAMPLE 2
A tophat-stiffened panel is considered to evaluate
the numerical accuracy of the method proposed.
The maximum deflection and stress at two
positions on this stiffened panel shown in Figure2
were compared. The plate is assumed to consist of
3 numbers of girders in the length of L and 2
numbers of stiffeners in the width of B. The
geometric properties of various elements are given
in Table3. The mechanical properties of all
elements are same and are given in Table4. The
results along with the comparison are presented in
Table5 and 6.
To apply this grillage analysis method, the effect
of the plate is considered as an effective flange to
both longitudinal and transverse beams. In this
way, the analysis of stiffened plate is reduced to
that of an unplated grillage. Effective breadth Be
has been assessed by many classification societies.
Here, the effective width of attached plate for
single skin construction is taken from Lloyds
Classification Societies rules [10].
1/2Be=0.5b1+10t

(12)

Figure1 composite beams

Table1. Geometric and material properties

Flange
Web
Single layer
(1.8288)10
(1.143)8
thickness(mm)
Total thickness
18.288
9.144
(mm)
Lamination
[0/90/0/90/0]s [0/90/0/90]s
scheme
E1=172.4GPa, E2=6.9GPa, v12=0.25,
G12=3.45GPa
Table2. The comparison between grillage method
and FEM
Grillage Difference
Method
FEM
method
(%)
Deflection (mm) 26.23
20.75
-20.9

x
y
Stress
xy
(MPa)

Bottom x
y
layer
xy
Top
layer

225.9
2.051
0.43
262.5
2.33
0.40

255.4
2.31
0
290.9
2.63
0

13.1
12.6
-10.8
12.9
--

Figure2. Geometry model of stiffened panel

Table 3 Geometric properties

Top flange
Web
Longitudinal girder (mm)
Single layer
(0.9625)8
(0.9625)8
thickness
Total thickness
7.7
7.7
Lamination
[0/90/45/-45]s [0/90/45/-45]s
scheme
Transverse stiffener (mm)
4

Single layer
(0.9625)8
(0.9625)8
thickness
Total thickness
7.7
7.7
Lamination
[0/90/45/-45]s [0/90/45/-45]s
scheme
Shell (mm)
Single layer thickness
(0.77)12
Total thickness
9.24
Lamination scheme
[0/90/45/-45/0/90]s
Table4. Material properties
Particulars
Youngs modulus E1(GPa)
Youngs modulus E2(GPa)
Shear modulus G12 (GPa)
Poissons ratios 12

x
Layer5 y
xy
x
Layer7 y
xy

5.034

15.7

x
y
xy
x
y
xy
x
y
xy
x
y
xy

179.2
-0.51
0.037
65.02
5.97
8.89
70.04
6.45
8.89
-54.1
13.43
0.045

184.1
-0.081
0.021
66.14
6.03
8.78
67.03
6.15
8.91
-56.3
12.53
0.002

2. 8
--1.7
1.0
-1.2
-4.3
-4.7
0.2
4.1
-6.7
--

Layer1

Layer3
Stress
(MPa)
Layer5

Layer7

Table6. Comparison between the results of different

methods at location B
Grillage Difference
Method
FEM
method
(%)
Stress
18.1
x 273.7 323.3
(MPa) Layer1 y 2.041
-0.12
---xy 0.026 0.028
7.9
x 107.2 115.7
Layer3 y
9.86
10.56
7.1
21.3
xy 12.66 15.36

12.6
13.3
14.5
-1.9
13.6
--

As can be seen from Table2,5,6, the maximum

deflection from the grillage method differ by up to
21% when compared to the FEM results and the
stresses at every layer from the grillage method
are generally conservative, with maximum
difference of 21.3% in these two examples with
respect to FEM results. The time required for FEM
analysis is much higher compared to the simplified
grillage method. It is concluded that in spite of
many simplifying assumptions made in the
simplified analysis of grillage model, the results
are within acceptable limits for use in the
preliminary stages of design. Therefore, the
simplified grillage method can make reliability
analysis, involving a large number of iterative
analyses, possible within a reasonable time frame.

Table5. Comparison between the results of different

methods at location A
Grillage Difference
Method
FEM
method
(%)
4.351

116.9
10.71
15.52
-97.8
21.75
0.003

3.3 COMPARISON AND DISCUSSION

Value
140
10
5.0
0.31

Deflection (mm)

103.8
9.457
13.55
-99.7
19.14
0.022

4. RELIABILITY
5B

The reliability of a structure is defined as the

probability that the structure will perform its
intended function without failing. For stiffened
panel, stiffeners are very important structural
components that are used to strengthen plates and
to increase their load carrying capacity. In ship
structure, most of stiffened panel fail due to the
failure of stiffeners, thus, considering the
stiffeners strength is very important in design of
stiffened panel. Therefore, in this paper, tensile
and compressive stress failure of crown (or table)
of stiffened panel mentioned in Example2 is
considered in the reliability analysis. The proposed
method together with the First Order Reliability
Method (FORM) and the Second Order Reliability
Method (SORM) are used to predict the reliability
and probabilistic failure of stiffened plates. The
general purpose structural reliability analysis
program CALREL [11] developed by the
University of California is used to perform these
analyses.

4.1 FAILURE CRITERION

A failure criterion is required to access whether
the laminated plate has failed or not under a load
system. In general, failure criteria of laminate
plate can be classified as non-interactive and
interactive. The former such as maximum stress
criteria and maximum strain criteria can give the
failure mode but it neglects the effect of stress
interaction in the failure mechanism. The latter
such as Tsai-Hill, Hoffman and Tsai-Wu Criteria
include stress interaction but it does not give the
mode of failure. Among existing failure criteria,
the most commonly used in the literatures, is the
Tsai-Wu criteria and it is adopted in this reliability
analysis. First-ply failure is considered, that is to
say that a laminate plate is assumed to fail when
any ply in the laminate fails.
As indicated previously, the principal stress
associated with each layer of a laminate plate can
be computed and the failure criterion is based on
these principle stresses. According to the Tsai-Wu
criterion, the first ply failure occurs when the
following criterion is satisfied in any one of the
lamina.
2
2
2
F111 + 2F121 2 + F22 2 + F6612 + F11 + F2 2 = 1 (13)

where, Fij, Fi are functions of material strengths

and i are stresses in material directions.
F1 =

1
1 1
1
1
F11 =
F2 =

Xt Xc
Yt Yc
Xt Xc

F22 =

1
*
1
F66 = 2 F12 = F12 / X t X c Yt Yc
S
Yt Yc

(14)

where Xt,Yt and Xc,Yc are the tensile and

compressive strength of lamina in the x,y direction
respectively. S is shear strength in the principal
material plane. F12* has to be determined from a
biaxial test, in the absence of a measured value,
Narayanaswami and Adelman[12] suggested that
F12* can be treated as zero for practical
engineering applications , therefore, F12* = 0 is used
in this analysis.

of variables, however, the probability distribution

of these variables are generally indeterminate. In
this paper, the elastic modulus, uniform lateral
pressure load, geometric and ultimate strength
values are treated as independent random variables
and they are randomly generated according their
assumed probability distribution. The mean values
of the basic variables are defined from their given
deterministic values and standard deviation values
of the basic variables are defined by using the
coefficient of variation (COV). In general, the
basic variables concerned with external load and
geometric values have the largest and smallest
coefficients of variation, respectively. All basic
variables are assumed to follow the probability
distributions of lognormal distribution. The mean
value and standard deviations of all basic random
variables used in the analysis are expressed in
Table7.The results of reliability index and failure
probability obtained via proposed method together
with the FORM, SORM are given in Table8.
From these results it can be noticed that the
reliability indices are fairly high and probabilities
of failure are much low. It is also noted that there
is small difference of values obtained from
FORM and SORM. Thus, the FORM is a
sufficient measure to estimate the probability of
failure in this example.
Table7. Probabilistic characteristics of basic
random variables
Coefficient
Distribution
Mean
Variable
of Variation
type
values
(COV)
140GPa
0.05
Lognormal
E1
10 GPa
0.05
Lognormal
E2
5 GPa
0.05
Lognormal
G12
0.31
0.05
Lognormal
V12
1500MPa
0.1
Lognormal
XT
1200MPa
0.1
Lognormal
XC
50MPa
0.1
Lognormal
YT
250MPa
0.1
Lognormal
YC
70MPa
0.1
Lognormal
S
1200mm
0.03
Lognormal
L
1000mm
0.03
Lognormal
B
0.2 MPa
0.2
Lognormal
q

4.2 VARIABLES
In general, the reliability assessment of structure
requires information on the probability distribution
6

Table8. The results of reliability analyses

5. CONCLUSION

Method

FORM

SORM

5.4972

5.4960

Pf

1.92910-8

1.94310-8

6B

A program code was developed on the basis of

grillage assumptions for analysis of stiffened
composite plate with boundary conditions of all
four edges simply supported subjected to uniform
transverse load. The proposed method is validated
and proven to be effective by comparison with the
finite element results. It is found that in spite of
many simplifying assumptions made in the
simplified analysis, the results are within
acceptable limits for use in the preliminary stages
of design.

4.3 SENSITIVITY MEASURES

Sensitivity analysis is an important part of
structural reliability assessment. It can provide
guidance to designers regarding the relative
importance among the basic random variables.
Furthermore, variables having a small sensitivity
factor might be assumed to be deterministic rather
than random variable in subsequent analysis, this
reduces the dimensionality of the space of
variables.
The importance factor i is considered as a
measure of the sensitivity of with respect to the
basic variables. The importance of the contribution
of the each basic variable towards the uncertainty
of the limit state function can be obtained from the
sensitivity factor given by

i =

(g ( x) / x )
i =1

g ( x)
xi

The reliability and sensitivity assessment of the

crown of stiffened composite panels subjected to
uniform lateral pressure load was performed by
FORM, SORM and the results showed that the
reliability estimates of crown of stiffened
composite panel are sensitive to variables of E1, E2,
YT, L, B,q, but insensitive to variables of G12 ,V12,
XT, XC, YC, S. The use of deterministic values for
these variables with small sensitivity factors can
improve the computational efficiency of reliability
assessment in the further analysis.

(15)

The sensitivity factors for the dominant variables

are listed in Table9. It shows that sensitivity
factors of the Youngs modulus of material E1, E2,
the ultimate tensile strength YT, the model
uncertainties L, B and load q are generally
significant values, which indicates that reliability
estimate of crown of stiffened composite panel are
sensitive to these variables mentioned above.
Consequently, the estimate of stochastic
uncertainty for these variables is desired. The
sensitivity factor of other variables such as G12,V12,
XT, XC, YC, S are small compared to variable E1, E2,
YT, L, B, q, these values can be replaced by
determined value in the further analysis.
Table9. Sensitivity factors of the dominant
variables
E2
YT L and B
q
Variables E1
Sensitivity
0.1681 0.1807 0.3874 0.3664 0.8065
factor i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
7B

This paper has been prepared within the project

MARSTRUCT-Network of Excellence on
Marine Structures, (www.mar.ist.utl.pt/marstruct/),
which has been funded by the European Union
through the Growth Programme under contract
TNE3-CT-2003-506141.
HU

UH

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